“He made a cookie about me — he’ll make one about you.”

Last Thursday, the chief of staffs of State Senator Tom Duane and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn phoned Kefalnios in a conference call to tell him that the two local politicians were urging him and his employees to undergo “a training” by the New York State Division of Human Rights.

“I agreed to do it, because I felt maybe it was the right thing to do,” Kefalnios said. “Maybe they’re right, I do need a little bit of sensitivity.” But he said he’s so busy — working 15 hours a day, seven days a week — he might have to do the training online.

(…)

Friends Juliette Imhof, 22, and Julie Znoy, 24, said when they went into the store about a month ago, Kefalnios struck them as “inappropriate.” (…)

“A woman had yelled at him about not having a handicapped ramp, and he told me, ‘And it’s your neighbor!’

“He doesn’t deserve to have the business,” Miller said. “It’s hard to have that kind of karma on the block.”

(…)

One neighborhood resident who declined to give his name said, “He’s not very smart. He thinks he’s funny. He’ll make a green St. Patrick’s Day cookie and say, ‘Have a cookie with your beer!’ But you can’t joke with everyone.

“You’re smart enough to have a business,” he said. “You can’t run a business that long and be that famous without having some kind of intelligence. … What’s done is done. It’s these kind of acts that lead to violent acts.”

Nice, from the comments:

Orwell’s “Animal Farm” pigs & sheep are alive and well in Greenwich Village! For 100 years and more, the Village has been a beacon for subversives and shocking artists who didn’t give a wit who’s sensibilities or politics they offended. In fact they made it their business to shock and offend. With few exceptions they were (and still are) left wing ideologues. But watch out now, now that the subversives have become the status quo, don’t you dare subvert THEM with shocking art or expression! Certainly not the lampooning of the Obama President whom MUST be held in Holy Veneration in their little left wing minds. I’ve seen blogs where the liberal “thought police” openly suggest that the baker be paid a visit by the Secret Service Agents in response to his Obama cookies. Their education by Stalin apologists at NYU has certainly stuck it seems. And freedom of art & expression is now reserved exclusively for leftists and nobody else. What hypocrisy! What elitist snobbery! And I say in the true spirit of the Village, the baker should bake whatever he dreams up. Like any other artist feels he’s entitled to do. And if anyone thinks this baker is the first “dumb” Village businessman, they don’t know the Village like I do.